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Stop Playing Small: Escape the Comfort Trap · The Nadia Chapman Show

• 0:05
  Welcome to a new episode of the Nadia Chapman Show. I'm your host, Nadia Chapman.
• 0:10
  Let me ask you something. Have you ever had the feeling that you were meant
• 0:15
  to do more, become more, maybe experience more, but somehow you keep holding yourself back?
• 0:23
  Maybe you have amazing ideas, or maybe you have the ability,
• 0:28
  or maybe deep down you know what you truly want, and yet you hesitate.
• 0:34
  You delay, you shrink your voice just a little, and you lower the goal just enough to make it safer.
• 0:41
  You tell yourself things like, oh, now is not the right time,
• 0:46
  or not fully ready yet, or maybe later.
• 0:48
  But as a mindset coach, I want to tell you the hard truth.
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  Most people are not stopped by lack of talent, or lack of opportunities, or even lack of ideas.
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  They are stopped by something far quieter and far more dangerous.
• 1:03
  They are stopped by the habit of playing small.
• 1:08
  And today I want to talk about the emotional cost of that choice.
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  Because while we're playing small may feel really safe in the moment,
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  it carries a price, a heavy price that a very few people talk about.
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  I call it the comfort trap. But here's the truth.
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  Comfort can quietly become a cage. And when you play small time and time again,
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  you may avoid embarrassment.
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  Sure, you may avoid criticism, of course, and you may avoid the risk of failure,
• 1:37
  but you also avoid something else.
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  And that is your potential. And the human spirit was never designed to stay
• 1:45
  contained in the first place.
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  You know, we are wired to grow. We are wired to stretch, to explore what we're capable of becoming.
• 1:52
  So when that instinct is suppressed long enough, something starts happening
• 1:57
  emotionally and you start feeling it.
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  You begin to feel restless without really putting the finger on why,
• 2:04
  but you start losing energy for the things that once excite you.
• 2:08
  You may feel frustrated in life with where your life is going without being
• 2:12
  able to clearly explain what's missing.
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  And what's missing is not talent. What's missing is not a dream.
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  It's not opportunity. It's expansion.
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  And one of the greatest emotional consequences of playing small is frustration.
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  Not loud frustration, not dramatic
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  frustration, but the kind that slowly builds over time inside of you.
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  You know, you watch other people take risks and you secretly wish that you can do the same thing.
• 2:38
  You see people speaking up maybe at a meeting or, you know, starting that new
• 2:43
  business or enrolling to a new course or doing a competition if you're an athlete.
• 2:47
  And, you know, you see people creating something new and trying something bold.
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  And part of you thinks, I could have done that, but I didn't.
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  And each time you silence that instinct inside of you, a small piece of your
• 3:02
  confidence just vanishes.
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  You know, your confidence doesn't come from thinking that, oh,
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  you're capable of doing something.
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  Confidence comes from acting on it. And every single time that you step forward,
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  you send a message to your brain. I trust myself.
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  Every single time that you step forward, for example, you send a message to
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  your brain. You send a message that, oh, I trust myself.
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  And every time that you hold back, well, you send the opposite message to your brain.
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  And over time, those messages shape how you see yourself.
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  So playing small doesn't just affect your goals, it affects your identity.
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  Because the person that you believe yourself to be is built through the actions.
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  When you constantly choose courage, you begin to see yourself as courageous.
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  See how that works? When you constantly
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  choose growth, you begin to see yourself as someone who evolves.
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  But when you repeatedly silence your ambition, something kind of subtle happens
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  and you start adjusting your identity downward.
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  You stop saying, oh, I could. You start saying, people like me don't do that.
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  And this is one of the most dangerous shifts a person can experience.
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  Because once you believe that something is not for you, you stop even trying.
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  How sad. And the door closes. Not because it was locked, but because you decide
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  not to walk through So here's something powerful to remember.
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  The goal in life is not comfort. The goal in life is expansion.
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  Expansion of your skills, expansion of your thinking, expansion of your courage.
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  The most fulfilled people out there in the world are not the one who avoid risk.
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  They are the one who repeatedly, time after time, stepped into growth,
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  even when it felt uncomfortable, because that growth stretches you.
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  It stretches the heck out of you. And once you experience that feeling of expansion,
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  oh my God, it becomes impossible to return to a smaller life.
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  So here's the question I want you to sit with today.
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  Where in your life are you playing small?
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  Is it in a dream that you've been delaying? Maybe a conversation that you're
• 5:11
  avoiding, a phone call, an idea that you've been holding back because you think
• 5:16
  that people are not going to respond well to it? What is it?
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  And if you're honest with yourself, all right, honesty is everything.
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  What is it costing you emotionally to stay where you're at?
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  Because the truth is that playing small may protect you from temporary discomfort
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  right now, but it also protects you from your own greatness, if I can say.
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  And the longer that you stay stuck there, the longer that you stay there,
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  the heavier the emotional weight becomes.
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  So maybe today, maybe, maybe today is the day that you stop shrinking your voice.
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  I hope this podcast wakes something inside of you.
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  Maybe today is the day that you move one step closer to the version of yourself
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  that you know is possible.
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  Not perfectly. It's not going to be perfect. It might be messy,
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  not fearlessly, but courageously.
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  Because the life that you want, I'm telling you, is not built by people who
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  stay small and play small.
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  It's built by people who decide that at some point or another that their growth
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  matters way more than the fears that they have.
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  If this episode spoke to you please share with someone whom i need a reminder
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  today and until next time stop playing small and step into the life that you're
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  capable of creating this is nadia chapman and you've been listening to the nadia chapman.